


When Things were Not Yet Named

by olga_eulalia



Category: Black Sails
Genre: Headcanon, Post-Season/Series 04
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-25
Updated: 2017-10-25
Packaged: 2019-01-23 04:41:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,232
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12498984
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/olga_eulalia/pseuds/olga_eulalia
Summary: John attends the birth of Madi's child.





	When Things were Not Yet Named

**Author's Note:**

> Unbeta'd. Non-native speaker writing here.

Her belly grows and grows. Yet she remains the same. He watches her across the camp, unable to do otherwise, and the rush of blood to his face is hot when she returns his gaze and holds it. He trails after her. Gives her as much space as she needs.

Their walking speeds come to match and, often, they wander side by side. They’re friendly with the people who come up to talk to them, but less so with each other. With each other, they exchange many looks, but only few words.

Eventually, she acknowledges him by handing him the small things in her life for mending, making him feel useful again. She never says _do this_ , though. Doesn’t even have to say _I’d like_ , most of the time, as he anticipates her wants and welcomes them, just as he welcomes every moment they spend together, gratefully.

 

Her mother sits in the corner, praying over an item in her hands. Night has almost swallowed her whole. Madi is on her knees, leaning forward, one arm holding up her weight, one hand gripping the wooden post at the side of the bed. The midwife croons in a low murmur, kneading Madi’s back, feeling her large belly.

But Madi needs space for herself, to be able to be herself, and she’s impatient of anyone who would constrain her movement. She shows her teeth, panting through them. Then goes back to a fluttery kind of breathing, her eyes staring into the space beyond. He doesn’t have to wonder what she sees. He knows pain that wipes out thinking, carves into the self and whittles at its core until it’s unrecognisable. He knows pain that just is. And he hates that thing stuck inside her for causing her so much of it.

The midwife’s attendant tips a flat, wooden bowl to her lips. Madi seems to relish the draught, lets it pour in. He wants to know what it is that’s being given, but the women treat him as if he’s not in the room at all. And he’s very well aware that if it weren’t for Madi’s insistence, he wouldn’t be.

He knows why Madi wants him present. He knows why she favored this place over the hut out in the forest, where her dignity would have remained intact, and chose to give birth inside the camp instead, where her struggle will be heard and known by everyone. But now she’s quiet – and his heart is beating frantically – she’s so quiet, it’s not right. Her mewls are desperate, useless hand-wringing, as her ache churns and churns but can’t get out, can’t find a way to be let go of.

The midwife speaks in low tones. Her attendant gestures at him, calling for his attention, and translates. “She wants you to do what she does.” The midwife, stern, nods at him.

He strips down to his linen and kneels beside Madi on the bed, careful not to touch her, waiting for the women to show him how to do it right. The midwife makes an impatient gesture at him, telling him to get on with it. So he puts his hands where hers have been, feels the hot skin stretched thin under his clammy palms. Madi grows loud. Her voice tears through her throat.

 

Later, when it’s early, when the mattress and the sheets and the clothes have been changed, when everything is picked clean to make it look as though the bloody battle had never taken place and the smoke rises reed-thin, he returns, wearing clothes that don’t reek of fear.

“John.” It’s a plea for him to come closer, spoken in a voice that’s scratched raw and exhausted.

He’s waited for an invitation like this, for her to say his name, for so long that he wants to do nothing more than go to her and lie down by her side. But how can he when he’s afraid to look at the child? He’s had one glimpse of it, alerted by its cry, this strange fleshy thing looking all trussed up and squished, so very helpless that he’s angry at it by default.

He’s known himself incapable of fathering children for a long time and always considered it a blessing. So when he finds the strength to step closer to the bed and kneels down in front of it, placing his crutch on the floor with barely a sound, his heart behaves in his chest like a hunted thing about to be cornered.

Madi smiles at him, tired. He hasn’t had much practice recently, but he smiles back, because not doing so would be more difficult. “You’re so beautiful,” he tells her, basking in the closeness of her. She’s reluctant to hear it. Her smile grows more pained. He’ll do better next time.

He’s told himself that he’ll keep looking only at her, only into the warm and watery gleam of her eyes, and nowhere else. But it’s no use. Curiosity is stronger than his resolve and makes his gaze slip.

The child rests on Madi’s breast with its back covered by the fluffiest-looking cloth. A tiny brown hand sticks out, curled into a loose fist. When Madi lifts the bundle, he reaches for it before he can think about what he’s doing and takes it into his hands with all the gentleness in the world. With more care than he’s ever held anything, he holds it, making sure the limbs are all comfortable where they’re bedded in the cradle of his arms.

Only then does he allow himself to look at the memory of that long, dusty and crimson day once more; at the soft, uncertain hour after they’d retaken Nassau Town. And is surprised to find that it is no longer bruised from all the nervous handling in his mind. That he can remember, effortlessly, the way they’d all touched each other, glad to be alive and so eager to affirm it with their mouths and hands, stripping each other of clothes as if discarding old skin and saying _Yes! Yes!_ to a new world with the keen slide of their bodies; when Madi had kissed them both, longed for them both, wanted to be part of them and them all to be part of each other, as they’d shifted and changed from flesh into heat and pleasure and light in their breathless embrace; when he had ventured a mad thought, his heart spilling over with joy, _it’s possible, it’s all possible_.

And now, as he looks at the tiny human with the tiny fingers and toes, with the pudgy limbs and the downy hair and the thoughtful frown between the eyebrows, he thinks that thought again. So clearly that he has to hand the child back to Madi, because he’s starting to shake. And before he knows it, tears have filled his eyes and are wetting his cheeks, as though barrels of water have been kicked over inside his head. His body remembers the briny taste of the sobs that wring him, but as much as he abhors it, he decides that, just this once, he won’t force himself to hold them back.

Blindly, he shuffles closer and puts his head on the pillow, seeking Madi’s warmth; finding her shoulder with his lips while he waits for his body to quiet itself. "I love you,” he says, then. “Both of you.”


End file.
